Excerpts from Book

 Chapter -----

 Being

“Our Father in heaven we thank you this day for the food we are about to eat, help it to strengthen us.  Give us wisdom to go through this day in all that we do.  Today our father we especially ask that you bless Jimmy on his birthday and give him the wisdom for this coming year to grow up in your light.  We ask this all, father, in Jesus name, Amen”

                   Prayed by my father on my 5^th birthday

“Shirley, Shirley” I can still remember calling at the top of my voice.  It was one of those things that as a 5 year old I just had to understand.  When Shirley came running down the stairs, she must have thought I had hurt myself.  I was outside muddy from head to foot, soaking wet; it was the monsoon season where we lived – and we only lived a short distance from where the highest rainfall in the world is recorded.  “What is it Jimmy” she said in a panicked voice, “Shirley, what does wisdom mean” I asked; “What are you talking about Jimmy, I thought you had fallen and broken your head;”   “Dad prayed this morning for me and said I should have wisdom, what does wisdom mean??”  I asked again.”  “Oh! That!  Well Jimmy its dad’s way of saying he loves you.  You will always hear him talking about things when he prays, or when he preaches, he doesn’t know how to say them to us, so that is his way of saying it.”  Shirley explained.  “You mean I shouldn’t say I love you to people, I should wait till I pray, or when I get older and preach; Shirley what if I don’t preach when I am older?  Then how do I say things to my kids and other people.”  Shirley saw my concern for this dilemma in life and tried to change the subject.  Ok, Jimmy – just accept Dad loves you, now get inside and have a bath”

It was Saturday our usual bath day, it was a big family affair once a week to have a bath.  Water had to be carried from the one neighborhood tap, by the bucket full, wait in line first to get your turn, wait for it to slowly fill up then carry it from the street up the stairs to our house.  It was like one of those luxuries to have a bath even if we boys were the ones who got the dregs left over from first mum or Dad Bathing – then we would finally get the tub with the same water and play in the water till our skin went all curly.  We got a bonus bucket of hot water heated on the stove, to warm up the water and I guess to dilute the dirtiness of the water. 

To this day seeing water flow out of a tap is like some miracle that strikes me as over abundance and an ease in life that seldom we appreciate.  I still am affected by small things as I walk down the street, small things that other people take for granted, that I think about, sometimes too much; 35 years later I walk through the same neighborhoods that I grew up in and still boys and girls are waiting, wasting the day for water to come out of the neighborhood tap, to get those precious buckets of water. 

I live but a stone throw away from where I was born in 1964 now with 2 boys of my own, very much a part of it as a child, yet so very much separated from it as a white blond boy with Canadian parents, in a land not our own. 

We lived a very different life than most white Canadian kids in the 1960’s and 70’s, and a very different life than the local Khasi kids in Mawlai, India.  A life so different, that the effects of those days linger on to this day, dripping sometimes like heavy rain drops on the dynamics of each of our families; there were 8 of us, 5 girls and 3 boys.  I was the only one of my siblings that was born in India, the only one of my siblings to come back to my birth place to live, to live in a culture I could not be fully a part of. – The affects of those days still inspire and affect my life to this day. 

Chapter ------

 Off to a Far Land

 “Our father in heaven, bless Donald, Miriam, Grace, Barbara, Joan, Shirley, Sally, Bobby and Roger, today as they leave Canada for a land they don’t know.  We ask you our father to be with them as they travel and when they arrive.  Bless Donald and Miriam as they go to do your work in India, we ask that you be with them and bless them in their decision.”….. 

 Prayed my Grandfather … so I was told, at the airport as my family was about to leave for India.

It was one of those days in January that I had to make a decision.  To most it would not be considered a difficult decision to make.  To me it was almost life and death – the consequence of choosing one over the other meant so much, what I would miss if I did one over another.  Now as an adult I am not so caught up in games of what to do, knowing that in every part of the world things are going on that I do not know of and that are not affecting my immediate decision, makes every decision easier to make.  When one thinks they are indispensable in all matters one cannot make a clear decision about things. 

The decision weather to go to a village and help our father teach the ‘word of god,’ or stay at home with mum, was one of those tough decisions I had to make often as a young boy. Going to the village could mean many things, first of all we would find some way of skipping out of the church service and hanging out with the older boys somewhere by a river, maybe taking a couple puffs of the bidi that was being passed around.  Or in the rainy season it could mean a bit of an adventure going over rivers, or maybe getting stuck in some mud – which possible meant missing the whole church service anyways.  Going across rivers in those days was one breath taking adventure after another.  Some of the ones where the bridge had been washed away – meant all getting out of the Jeep – a few finding a couple logs, laying them across then Our father, alone in the jeep, making the gentle drive across two slippery logs, us sitting on the edge half hoping he made it safely, half hoping one of the tires would slip off.  We did not understand the consequences of the slip, we only knew that it meant more time finding ways of getting out. 

Staying with mum at home had its own special advantages that were far different than the adventures met while spreading the ‘word of god.’  And going with our father also meant us thinking all the time of what we were missing at home.  Mum would always make up a special batch of cookies, macaroons, peanut butter cookies or her famous hermits.  Then we would all go out for a picnic if the weather were nice, if it were not we would stay at home keeping ourselves warm around the charcoal burner.   Then evening time meant pajamas and pile in to mum’s bed for some good old stories.  Always the stories not meant for my age, but I listened anyways – and she read a lot. We would always wonder what bad word had been used when she would be reading a sentence and use blankitty blankity blank when words not to her standard were used.  Of course even the word damn was out of the question for our mother.   Then there were the occasions when we prodded her to tell stories of coming to India, and leaving that cold northern country of Canada, at that time, like to my boys now, Canada was just a story land and far far away. 

When our mother got going, she really got going – sometimes indulging a little, but we knew it was true, cause mum never lied.  This night lying there imagining what our father was doing in the villages we slowly lost our self to the tale and adventure of our mother: 

Once upon a time, she always began her stories like that;  a long long time ago lived a family of 9 in a small town in southern Canada.  “Now Jimmy you were not there yet, so your story will come in later”.  This family lived a happy and simple life; there were 5 blond, blue eyed girls and two boys. Every one of them was different and unique.  The children played like all children and lived what they thoughts was a normal life.  Then one day the father of the house came home and called a family meeting: so there they all sat, wide eyed and startled.  Cause father only called family meetings when something serious had to be announced.  “Children” he said “we are going to a far off country, to do the ‘work of god.” 

Shillong had those real cold nights, where getting up to take a pee was a thing you put off as long as possible, denying, to yourself each time of course, that it would be far more relaxing to get up and just get it over with. 

This was one of those nights as we curled up in bed with mum and listened to her get deeper and deeper into her story, a cup of hot tea forgotten beside her to be drunk in one gulp when she remembered and when she got time.  There were occasions when re-heating the tea on the coal stove was done, cause you could not waste anything……………………..……………….

Chapter ------

In Search of  this is a jump into the middle of the book.

 Gajaananam bhootaganaadisevitam Kapittha jamboophala saara bhakshitam;
Umaasutam shoka vinaasha kaaranam Namaami vighneshwara paada pankajam.

 I worship the lotus feet of Ganesha, the son of Uma, the destroyer of all sorrows, who is served by the host of gods and elementals, and who takes the essence of the kapittha-jarnbu fruit.

                                                Prayer overheard at mandir..

It was one of those days, foggy and damp, just the kind that, when you go out in the middle of the day after a bath, it takes but 5 minutes of walking to make you feel like another bath would be called for.  I was going to one of the famous places of Assam, Majuli, it has been the cultural and religious center for the Assamese people since the 16^th century. It is believed that the Lord played with his consorts here, a place that many read about but few know much about.  Majuli Island would take about 2 and half hours on a ferry full of people, a few cars that did not seem they should be on such a small boat and lots and lots of two wheelers. 

My life traveling never leads me to boredom, even in event of nothing to do, there is too much to see. Even on the seeming endless ride on this ferry my mind never stops and my imaginations keep flowing.  I was sitting there thinking and dreaming when a voice said: 

 “My Son,” here I accepted that from a stranger, and maybe even liked it, despite my own hardened masculine outside.  It felt nice to hear.  He went on, not even asking for a sign that I was interested: “We are each born into a particular circumstance, our nature is already present. There are those who are arrogant, those who are good and those who are bad and also those who are neither.” 

Why he so abruptly, without introduction was into very serious conversation, or should I say oratory, I did not seem to be expected to give my side of the conversation.  He just spoke. 

I was thinking, as he spoke: who was I.  I spent my whole life with people deciding even before they knew me that I am good, rich and a Christian, why? “Because I am white.”  How the colour of our skin can make such a strong first impression.  Am I any of them, or am I doing things to be the opposite and not letting my circumstance just be. 

My thoughts were interrupted as he continued:  “then once you are born into a circumstance much of you is shaped by that circumstance.  Your early years are the most influential on all that you do, determining much of the interactions and relationships you form in life.  Your inner self will however be seen, are you inherently generous, kind, mean or many such things.” 

Again my own thoughts took over, what had shone through in me over the years of growing up in a circumstance that may be considered out of the ordinary circumstance.  A white person surrounded by his family, but in so many ways put into a situation far out of what was considered normal.  Running about amongst an entirely different circumstance … 

He still went on, interrupting my selfish mind. “Then when you get older the 3 types of people emerge, the ones who struggle and fights against the circumstance, getting out and making a difference somewhere else. The ones who struggle and fight the circumstance, question and wonder within the circumstance and either make a positive or negative impact on the circumstance, but none the less stays within the circumstance. Then there are the ones who just go along and make no particular impact on the circumstance, they may go in and out but not change or impact, making no positive or negative gains for the circumstance. 

Naturally my mind was wrestling and wondering which one I was, what have I done and what was I doing.  I snapped out of my dream world when he quickly and directly, as if reading my mind, said: “Don’t decide which one you are, that has already taken place, you have and had no choice …..”  stood up and went to sit at the other end of the ferry …..